SECAUCUS – Within the past two years, the Secaucus Police Department has taken an aggressive and proactive stand against prostitution and vice activity in the town’s numerous hotels, but not everyone is happy.
Secaucus police made 21 prostitution-related arrests last year, eclipsing the 19 arrests the department made in 2015, according to arrest records obtained through an Open Public Records Act request.
This number is a stark contrast to Secaucus’ neighbors on its eastern and western borders. North Bergen made six prostitution-related arrests in 2016 — five of which were targeted and carried out by undercover officers. In East Rutherford, no prostitution-related arrests were made in 2016.
Additionally, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office made 17 prostituted-related arrests in Secaucus — a town of approximately 19,000 residents — in 2016, which included various sting operations.
“As soon as (Chief Kevin Flaherty) got named officer in charge, one of his goals immediately was to attack the issue of prostitution,” said Secaucus police Capt. Dennis Miller. “He was a captain and lieutenant on the patrol side and he saw a lot of the end results of prostitution. So our position is that we are going to address that activity and address it the best way we can with the resources we have.”
The police mainly utilize undercover agents to make the arrests. Of the 40 arrests made in the past two years, 27 of them were made by undercover officers.
Meanwhile, 13 of the 19 people arrested in 2015 were women, while six were men. In 2016, 17 women were charged with prostitution-related offenses, while four men were arrested on similar charges.
“We’re attacking it in multiple ways and use multiple facets of investigative techniques,” Miller said. “One is the undercover role; another is the reverse role where we actually have female officers posing as prostitutes.”
And most of the arrests made were in the town’s hotels, which are generally separated from the town’s residential neighborhoods.
“The town is 6.6 square miles – we’re in the area of about 18 hotels which equates to approximately 3,000 or more hotel rooms, Miller said. “With those sheer numbers, you’re going to have vice activity.”
“In this age of the internet and social media, it’s something we’re trying to get a handle on, ” Miller said. “The days of prostitutes standing on the street corners flagging down johns – that really doesn’t happen much anymore. If you look at the arrests — where the people are from — they travel from the west coast and a lot of them land here due to the sheer volume of the hotel rooms.”
Additional efforts have been made apart from the hotels as well, including enforcement at the Spa for Man & Woman Inc., where at least five arrests were made in the past two years.
Some people, however, are not celebrating the Secaucus Police Department crackdown on prostitution. Derek Demeri, the advisory committee chair for the New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance — an organization dedicated to “promoting, defending, and advocating for the human rights of sex workers” in New Jersey – contends that sex work should be decriminalized.
“People should have autonomy over their own lives, and that (decriminalization) is the safest approach for both clients and workers,” Demeri said.
Founded in 2013, Demeri’s volunteer organization has been critical of the Secaucus Police Department in the past for its prostitution enforcement and has even expressed disapproval of The Jersey Journal publishing the names of those charged in previous arrests.
They are adamant that targeting and arresting prostitutes is not a solution.
“There’s a lot of factors that play into why someone makes the decision to get involved in the trade – that could be lack of resources or they need money for shelter, which makes calling it a choice very difficult,” Demeri said. “But if you are focused on that aspect of it, then how is arresting them going to help anything.
“I would imagine the police chief would say that well, it’s a crime and we have to enforce it no matter what,” he added. “If there’s someone posing as a client who is acting violent towards them, they can’t report that to the police because they’re afraid that they’ll get arrested also. So I question why we need to keep doing this?”
However, Miller said prostitution is not a victim-less crime, and that there is a lot of dangerous and sometimes violent criminal activity that stems from the practice.
He pointed to arrests made involving underage adolescents, and the human trafficking element that comes into play.
“It brings other criminal activity when you let this type of activity flourish,” Miller said. “From our end of the spectrum, a lot of these prostitution-related activities result in robberies, assaults, credit card fraud, thefts, etc. Many times the prostitutes themselves are the victims.
The New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance, while relatively new, plans to increase lobbying efforts in 2017 to address the issue, Demeri said.
“And at the end of the day, it’s illegal. It’s in violation of the law,” he added. “We can all say what we like, but the law is the law.
“Until the legislature makes prostitution legal than we still have to enforce it.”
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